SENATE CONFIRMS MILLS:

The New York State Senate confirmed Governor George E. Pataki’s nominee, Howard Mills, as Superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department. Mills has been serving as acting superintendent since January 2005. Mills succeeds Greg Serio, who resigned to take a job with a consulting firm headed by former U.S. Sen. Alphonse D’Amato.

Mills was a New York State Assemblyman, representing Orange and Rockland counties, for three terms (1998-2004) and served as that chamber’s Deputy Minority Leader while also sitting on the Assembly’s Banking, Housing, Insurance and Ways and Means Committees.

He was first elected to public office in 1989, winning the first of two terms as a Councilman in the Town of Wallkill. Mills was elected Wallkill Town Supervisor in 1993 and re-elected to that position in 1995 and 1997.

The Superintendent of Insurance is responsible for the monitoring and regulation of more than 1,000 insurance companies with total assets exceeding $2 trillion. The position, which has an annual salary of $127,000, also includes oversight responsibility for more than 100,000 brokers, agents and financial intermediaries and the management of approximately 1,500 department employees.